The Radiant War

Chapter 9b

     “They can cast a curse in a heartbeat," Tyrell reminded him. "And besides, our job is to defend the scientists. We hide in the corn. The horses will still be here after the Radiants have passed, and even if they aren’t, I imagine there'll soon be plenty more horses hereabouts.”

     The soldier looked shocked at his callous reference to cursed villagers and for a moment Tyrell thought he might protest, but then he nodded, dismounted and began unbuckling his saddle.

     “Try to disturb the corn as little as possible,” he said as they made their way across the field. “Find a spot a little way away from the others, then lie down and keep still. No matter what you see and hear, keep still and keep silent.”

     The ground was damp and cool. Tyrell made sure that he was lying a few feet away from Shanks, with Andrea and the men who'd carried her a few feet away in the other direction. The maize was growing dense enough that he couldn't see either of them, but it was only about four feet tall and there was nothing above them. A Radiant, drifting by high enough for its longest tentacles to just drag along the ground, would be able to see them clearly if it came within twenty or thirty yards. And who knows what other senses it might possess? he suddenly thought. Their eyesight is thought to be poor, compared to that of a human, so it’s probably not their most important sense, so what is? Hearing? Smell? Or some other sense of which humans were totally unaware? Were they hidden at all from those other senses?

     They were just in time, because refugees from the town were running back towards Adams Hill, desperate to escape the massacre. Tyrell listened carefully, even as he kept his face pressed to the ground, and heard panicked voices arguing about how they were going to escape. “Look! Horses!” he heard someone say. “Where did they come from?”

     “Who cares? Grab one."

     “They don’t have saddles!”

     “Who cares? Just grab a couple.”

     There followed the sounds of people and animals chasing each other, and the intelligence man tensed up in fear as one of the horses galloped across the field in their direction, followed by the townsman. If he sees us, we’ll have to kill him, he thought, and he moved his hand to the knife at his belt as the two came closer. At the last minute, though, the horse changed direction and galloped off to the west, tossing its head in indignation, and Tyrell breathed a sigh of relief.

     It was short lived. A moment later his companion gave a cry of terror. “They're coming! Dan, they’re coming!”

     “Shit! Hide! Run!”

     Tyrell heard the man running directly away from them, but if the Radiants had seen him and gave chase, he would lead them directly to where the scientists and their escort were hiding. On the other hand, if the town was now completely encircled, chasing every stray would leave gaps in the contracting circle. The better strategy would be for every Radiant to simply follow a straight line to the centre of town, killing or cursing every human it came across on the way, and that meant that one of them might well be passing directly over their hiding place. Dammit! thought Tyrell in new fear. We haven't thought this through...

     There was no time to think of a new plan, though. They could only keep their heads low and hope for a miracle. He did some mental arithmetic in his head. If they were about a mile from the centre of town, then the circumference of the circle of Radiants at that distance would be about six miles. About ten thousand yards, give or take. If there were a hundred Radiants attacking the town, then that was one Radiant every hundred yards. That meant that there was a roughly fifty fifty chance that one would come close enough to see them...